Rice’s star rises as congressional opposition dims

Source: AP

BY BRADLEY KLAPPER

TOPICS: FROM THE WIRES, POLITICS NEWS

WASHINGTON (AP) — With congressional opposition softening, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice could find her name in contention as early as this week to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of State. It’s a step that may signal greater U.S. willingness to intervene in world crises.

As President Barack Obama nears a decision on Clinton’s successor, Rice has emerged as the clear front-runner on a short list of candidates that many believe has been narrowed to just her and Sen. John Kerry, despite lingering questions over her comments about the deadly Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya.

Administration officials and congressional aides say Rice will be making the rounds on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to discuss the attack in private meetings with key lawmakers whose support she would need to be confirmed.

29. I hope he makes the right choice and goes with Sen. Kerry. n/t

6. "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S."

"The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

"Days after Dr Rice gave Mr Tenet her approval, the Justice Department approved the use of waterboarding in a top secret August 1 memo."

So, yeah, other than incompetence that lead to the loss of 3000 American lives, lying us into a war that cost us even more lives than that, and actively participating in a torture regime, Condi Rice is no different than Susan Rice.

18. There is no meaningful anything

Did Susan Rice lied us into war? Did she mislead Congress in her appearance? What the hell are you talking about, stop with the lame effort in trying to smear Susan Rice. She much more smarter, sharper than Condi by a very long margin.

34. Alerted? n/t

46. Earth to Odin: the election is over.

It's okay, Odin. I'm a loyal Dem who has worked in DC, held paid positions for the DSCC, DCCC, and worked election campaigns back to LBJ. I just don't think it's in our national interest to get into a set of newer, bigger wars in the Middle East, even if Susan Rice and others wants to style them as "humanitarian interventions."

50. Like Susan Rice, I am haunted by US and int'l failures to protect in Rwanda.

But, I am opposed to the US and its erstwhile allies in the Middle East sparking multiple uprisings and arming the opposition under the guise of "humanitarian intervention" in what becomes bloody, protracted civil wars (Syria), or situations where large quantities dangerous weapons such as MANPADS fall into the hands of Jihadi groups (Libya).

I am particularly opposed to enabling al-Qaeda and similar Salafist militias to fight a series of religious wars across the MENA region, when experience tells us that in the end they will only turn the weapons and training against us. That is precisely what has been happening under the guise of "humanitarian intervention." Smart people such as Dr. Rice and Pres. Obama should have learned that lesson after 9/11, but apparently failed to do so in time.

56. Sometimes, the consequences of regime change are worse than the regimes.

That's the weighing that goes on in my head. It's a least-harm approach.

I have no illusions about Liberal Internationalism. Like any other approach to foreign policy, it entails human suffering and costs, foreseen and not, as well as potential long-term benefits. In the particular cases of Libya and Syria, these particular interventions aren't justified by the costs and risks of unintended consequences.

I don't trust foreign policy professionals who get it very wrong, and nor should you.

19. Bwahahahaha!

45. How can you call their policies indistinguishable?

Obama hasn't gotten us into two wars with money borrowed from China that was not put on the budget. And Obama certainly has been presented with tough decisions to make as far as sending or not sending troops to Egypt, Libya and Syria. He wisely kept our troops out of those entanglements which allowed self determination by the Egyptian and Libya people, a good thing. We shouldn't try to control everything by always meddling into other countries domestic upheavals, a policy that future presidents would be smart to follow. Syria is still going through its civil war without us interfering and trying to impose our will on who governs, and therefore avoiding untold American casualties, along with the resentment and hatred of the side we didn't chose to support. That fact alone probably saved us from indirectly creating thousands of eager new recruits for al-Qaeda. And btw, not following Bush's policies of eagerly jumping into wars, we saved billions, perhaps trillions of debt added to the deficit. And one more thing, those Bush-incurred off-the-books, supplemental debts for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, President Obama, in the interest of transparency, added them to the budget which increased our deficit tremendously, which in turn tremendously increased the volume of repugs yammering and blaming the President for so much spending and the jacked up deficit. And another btw, the current administration has the lowest spending rate of any administration since Eisenhower. You can look it up. One other huge foreign policy difference; the President didn't lose interest in going after Bin Laden like W Bush did and now Bin Laden's corpse is shark bait at the bottom of the ocean.

48. If Bush was a 9.0 on the military-for-corporate-benefit scale, then

Obama is at least a 7.5.

He gives great speeches, but at the end of the day, he is a pragmatist. He picks his battles very carefully, and this is an area he just isn't willing to shake up. I can't say that I blame him too much. Talk about entrenched interests. If he has one big battle left in him, it should be to break up the too-big-to-fail banks or to shake the grip of Big Pharma that is costing us twice what we ought to be paying for drugs.

51. He is who he is and the country is what it is

Can President Obama change it, because we don’t exactly live in the United States of Altruistic Utopia? Let’s get real and understand who we are and how we are viewed in the world. We live in the United States of America, perhaps the most rapacious and imperialistic country to have arisen in history. Since 1893 when we first flexed our imperialistic muscles with a Navy gunboat and overthrew the monarchy in Hawaii at the behest of ex-pat American sugar growers who wanted free reign to operate their plantations, and on through our Cuban double cross at the end of the Spanish American War, add the Philipines, Nicaragua, Haiti, Guatemala, Panama, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Chile, Iran (helping the British to overthrow a democratically elected leader, intent on nationalizing it’s oil industry, in order to install the compliant Shah), Viet Nam, Grenada, and finally Iraq, we have extended the outrageous conceit of “Manifest Destiny” to a global scale to invade at will, occupy or foment coups in foreign lands in order to gain control of their natural resources for huge profits for our corporations like Dole, United Fruit, Standard Oil, Anaconda Mining, and on and on. These foreign interventions have been cloaked in the mantle of national security and furtherance of Democracy of course to sell them to ordinary Americans needed for the military. And many of us have bought into it for over a century, some of us, not so much.

But to think that one man can change our foreign policy direction in three and a half years is unrealistic and naïve. I of course am not privy to foreign policy goings-on but I would think that sometime soon after a new, first-term president is inaugurated a briefing takes place where corporate and military leaders make it clear to the newby that U.S. interests (that reads “corporate” interests) will remain the direction that our foreign policy takes and any attempts to change it could be dangerous (i.e. JFK). He/she would most likely be told that he/she has some latitude in domestic policy like civil rights, healthcare, social issues, environmental (not too much though), etc. but to steer clear of wholesale foreign policy changes (war is very profitable for corporations after all).

With all that to contend with plus Bush's mess to clean up, I think he's done pretty well. He is the first president to pass a healthcare bill and he's also invested in and will continue to champion green issues and perhaps move us away from having to pursue our invasive foreign policy direction towards, and let’s be clear, non-white countries' natural resources, as we will develop our own domestic alternative energy sources. Other presidents to come should follow his lead. So on your military-for-corporate-benefit scale, which I give you is a real elephant-in-the-room factor that most people either ignore or are unaware of, I would say he's much lower than a 7.5.

57. Where his heart is, is much lower than 7.5, I agree

But when you look at the ACTUAL practices, well, that's a different story. Basically I agree with you about the limits of what one man can do. I think the frustration here is that he does show a vision of a world where a President doesn't have to let Israel commit genocide any time they want to, a world where we don't take a trillion dollars a year from the commoners in order to make it safe for non-tax-paying multinationals to extract resources from less powerful people around the world, and so on.

And Obama also knows this kind of change takes a long time. He is trying to put some of the stepping stones in place to get us there. The issue is that the rhetoric doesn't come anywhere close to the reality -- not because he's lying or untrustworthy -- but because in his mind, the long term and the present are blended together. The rest of us have to live in the present

10. If Susan Rice agrees with SOS Clinton's current approach - there are huge differences. n/t

11. and you're an expert in diplomatic settlements because....?

no links, no nothing. How has the O admin. fixed the US image around the world after BushCo? Rice is one reason and if O wants her, I'm for her. She is an outstanding candidate, see her background here:

17. You seem to have never heard of US intervention in Libya or Syria and Iran.

Susan Rice has been one of the most forceful voices within the Obama Administration for what she styles as "humanitarian interventions" and sanctions regimes which turn out to be indistinguishable for old-fashioned US covert operations and regime change. Tell us what the difference is?

38. I guess only Americans have souls to you. Newsflash: 15K antiaircraft missiles are loose

and floating around arms markets in the region because Clinton, Rice and Co. decided to regime change Libya and they ended up getting shipped off to Syria and Gaza and other places. But, you probably didn't even know that. But, I'm afraid, you will hear about it one of these days.

26. Not as qualified as Senator Kerry.

37. She appears to be, not at all diplomatic.

Back when she was an assistant secretary of state during the Clinton administration, she appalled colleagues by flipping her middle finger at Richard Holbrooke during a meeting with senior staff at the State Department, according to witnesses. Colleagues talk of shouting matches and insults.

43. I have read those reports of her antics before.

I have to wonder if she tries bully those who do not agree with her into going along with her. I can't bring myself to support her, not when I know that Senator Kerry should have this post-because he is the entire package and not just real friendly with the President.

54. Far-fetched, you say?

59. He has served Mass well for many years, it isn't fair to suggest he not take a post,

simply because others are afraid of something that may not even come to pass. And, I am certain what happened in Mass before will not happen again with Democrats. Suppose he decided to retire and not run in 2014, are you going to make him stay?

55. It is not worth the gamble to again lose a safe seat to the likes of Scott Brown. That happened....

before, and many of us thought the very "notion" of Scott Brown taking Teddy Kennedy's seat was "far fetched" as well. Leave John Kerry where he is, because Susan Rice is more than qualified to fill the vacancy of SoS, foreign relations has been her career for a couple of decades now.

22. All I can say is I would prefer he went with Senator Kerry.

I don't think she has the right experience, world recognition, or knowledge that Senator Kerry has. And, it seems the only reason she is considered the top choice is because she is friendlier with the President. I have to wonder how Senator Kerry feels about her making the rounds this week. I am preparing myself for disapointment and disillusionment with our President if/when he picks her. I don't know whose idea it was to suggest Senator Kerry for Secretary of Defense, but it seems insulting and opens him up to a replay of 2004. Sometimes I just don't understand the logic of this administration.

41. we can still hold out hope.

Maybe it is all just speculation and possibly a way to appoint Kerry without running him through the rumor mill. Obama did pick Hillary because he thought she was the most qualified...so maybe he will look at this objectively and make a similar choice in Kerry.

42. We can hope, but I can't help but feel angry right now.

It seems such a bad move and dare I say a slap in the face for Senator Kerry. If I didn't know better, I suppose I wouldn't care if it was Rice, but I do, and to overlook qualifications, experience, world recognitons and calls from foreign leaders suggesting they would prefer to work with Senator Kerry, it all seems so very sad.

40. That is not racism, IMO.

They were never attacking her because she is Black or has a PHD, they were after her to get to the President. She seemed to them to be an easy target rather than trying to go after Clinton or the President.

53. So white men can't criticize a black woman?

Did you feel the same when Condi Rice was SOS? Are white legislators supposed to stay mute when a minority public official states something that they disagree with?

I'm not saying that I agree with McCain and Graham, but I don't agree that two white guys against a black woman is racist in this context. Rice is the UN ambassador, making statements on behalf of the WH on all networks on a certain Sunday in September. Two senators of the opposing party have objections over her remarks. What does her race or gender have to do with anything?